Congress Passes Spending Bill

WASHINGTON — Congress on Tuesday passed a stopgap spending measure giving negotiators two days to find a compromise that would keep the government running and allow members to go home for Christmas.

A balky House had rejected the $370 billion omnibus spending bill Monday night, but both houses on Tuesday approved an extension until midnight Thursday.

A last-minute hitch almost stalled action on the stopgap legislation in the Senate when Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D., Ohio) became suspicious that the Republicans and the administration were trying to sneak through funding for two Synthetic Fuels Corp. projects in Utah and Colorado.

The SynFuels program would be eliminated in the omnibus bill, and the House version of the stopgap measure contained language prohibiting any expenditure of funds in the next two days.

Metzenbaum contended there were ``rumors`` the White House had agreed that the two projects, Seep Ridge in Utah and Union in Colorado, would receive about $700 million before the prohibitions went into effect. It was not clear whether an attempt would be made to sign contracts for the projects before President Reagan signed the stopgap bill prohibiting such action.

The controversy over SynFuels was only one of several the negotiators have to resolve as they attempt to change a longer term spending bill enough for it to pass, but not so much that the White House would veto it.

The legislation has been rejected for reasons ranging from too much money for defense to fears that Congress might appear to be giving itself a pay raise.

The House vote also appeared to be a rebellion of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, who sometimes feel ignored when deals are cut by their more middle-of-the-road, pragmatic colleagues.

Conservatives were upset about provisions banning the testing of antisatelite weapons in space, while liberals were angry that their provisions tightening Pentagon procurement practices were dropped.

In addition, some members resented a requirement that states raise their drinking ages to 21 or permanently lose thier federal highway funds.

said: ``You should never keep the House after 11 (p.m.). It`s like managing a nursery without a nap.``

As negotiators tinkered with the legislation behind closed doors, there were concerns that substantial changes in the level of defense spending could increase the likelihood of a presidential veto.

The White House has complained that domestic spending is too high, but congressional leaders had felt confident that Reagan would sign the measure because he got most of what he wanted for defense.

An aide to House Minority Leader Robert Michel (R., Ill.) suggested it would be helpful if the White House took a firm position on the bill.

Sen. Mark Hatfield (R., Ore.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, also told reporters, ``I do feel it`s very important we get a definitive signal.``

Hatfield said one area of compromise might be inclusion of a version of the House language on defense procurement. He said he had gotten a ``positive response from the administration`` to the idea of ``some kind of procurement reform.``

The $370 billion is needed to fund the operations of federal agencies and departments that have not yet had their fiscal 1986 appropriations approved.

The White House had warned Tuesday afternoon that ``nonessential``

employees of four departments and several agencies would be told not to report to work Wednesday if Congress did not pass the measure Tuesday.

A spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget said ``nonessential`` employees of the Departments of Treasury, Agriculture, Interior and Transporation would be told not to report to work if no action was taken.

(After the extension was approved, employees were told to report to work Wednesday as usual.)